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As information and communication technologies and learner characteristics in higher education develop, so do distance education methods, which are implemented at various levels by higher education institutions. The involvement of students in the learning process is one of the most crucial factors to consider throughout the distance education application transformation, which might change depending on the conditions. At this point, it can be stated that the intrinsic motivation levels of learners involved in distance learning play a decisive role in participating in learning processes. Therefore, examining the intrinsic motivation levels of distance learners is seen as an element that needs to be emphasized. This justifies the study's goal, which is to analyze the intrinsic motivation levels of students who get distance education from higher education institutions concerning factors including age, gender, employment, and educational status. The relational survey model, one of the general survey models, was utilized in this study, which included 327 distance learners. In terms of distance education applications, the findings of the study have a guiding nature for the administrators working in higher education institutions. The analyses carried out revealed that there were no significant differences in the intrinsic motivation levels of distance learners according to their gender, employment situation, or level of education. Furthermore, it has been found that as people get older, their intrinsic incentive for learning grows. A list of recommendations based on the data gathered within this study is provided at the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technologies have been transforming the way we teach and learn. Either for facilitating teaching practices or for making learning more interesting and joyful for the learners, artificial intelligence-based applications are utilized in recent years. In this connection, this study intends to examine if automated feedback and teacher feedback contribute to academic writing achievement and whether they differ in their effect on achievement in learning English as a foreign language in an open and distant learning context. The participants of the study were open education faculty students in a higher education institution in Turkey. In this quasi-experimental quantitative study repeated measures design was adopted. the participants were given writing tasks each week in a nine-week writing activity and they received feedback from their English language teachers for the first three tasks, and they received feedback from the software for the last three tasks. All participants wrote an English text as a diagnostic test at the beginning of the process. At the end of the teacher and software feedback phases, they took post-tests. All grades were statistically analyzed in order to find any effect of regular feedback either from a language teacher or from an online software on academic writing achievement. Results revealed significant differences between the diagnostic test and two achievement tests. Participants tended to improve their academic writing skills by taking regular feedback, and it was observed that the writing scores increased slightly more when receiving feedback from teachers compared to automated feedback software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a sense of community could be enhanced via learning activities delivered through a Facebook group within a self-paced distance-learning course. A closed Facebook group was created for a voluntary English as a foreign language course. Four types of learning activities were delivered via the Facebook group including both synchronous and asynchronous structured activities, and synchronous and asynchronous unstructured activities. The study was designed as convergent mixed-method study. Quantitative data were gathered from a total of 179 students by using the Classroom Community Scale; quantitative data were concurrently gathered from 17 students via semi-structured interviews. The results revealed that the sense of community among learners was found to be high, however, the type of learning activities had no effect on building a sense of community. The study was intended to guide teachers, instructors, administrators and practitioners interested in designing and delivering self-paced open and distance learning courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]